


5 Times Someone Noticed Peter Doesn’t Breathe and One Time They Didn’t

by CapeGooseberry



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: 5+1 Things, Angst, Body Horror, Feelings, Gen, I mean the spider did not ask before it bit, Illnesses, Implied/Referenced Character Death, More tags to be added, Non-Consensual Body Modification, People notice, Peter can't catch a break, Peter is more spider than you thought, Poor Peter Parker, You Have Been Warned, but not of the romantic kind, communication is key!, concerned parent Tony Stark, don't say I didn't warn you about the body horror!, honestly, not long now!, please talk to each other before assuming things, sorry i take so long to update :S, that's the story, too much science
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-06
Updated: 2019-08-31
Packaged: 2019-10-05 03:31:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17317253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CapeGooseberry/pseuds/CapeGooseberry
Summary: Fun fact: some spiders have what is known as book lungs which are made up of folds that contain blood and air pockets for gas exchange. Book lungs evolved separately from our lungs and no motion of the folds is required for respiration (ie no breathing movements).Not so fun fact: Peter has picked up a bunch of spider traits from a bite from some sort of mutant spider - and they go deeper than the surfaceThis is a peter was more spider than you thought story (you know the type).I read a fair bit about spider anatomy last summer (for purposes unrelated to this fic) which gave me the idea for this!





	1. Peter

**Author's Note:**

> Well I'm back but not with another chapter of Brick by Brick. Instead I present you with a new mess!
> 
> This may be a bit heavy on the science side but I wanted to explore how this would work (realistically it wouldn't because Peter is significantly larger than a spider so requires more oxygen but it makes an interesting scenario!). Also Peter is supposed to be into chemistry so it's in character for him to do some research!
> 
> I enjoy reading those stories where Peter is a little more spidery than people thought so why not write my own!?
> 
> In this story I’m assuming Peter was bitten by an Araneomorph spider (this family includes web building spiders) which have a pair of book lungs and a pair of tracheal lungs (which are more like ours).
> 
> Fair warning: I told my sister the premise of this story and she seemed appreciative until I told her some of the details of the change, at which point she was like "ick :((" I did not write this with the intention of body horror but that is what has happened.

He should have owned up to the spider bite when it happened, he’d fully intended to! However he had wanted to see the rest of the tour first and he hadn’t banked on his awful memory, there was just too much awesome stuff at Oscorp and once the bite had stopped hurting he’d forgotten it even happened. It wasn’t until he got home and collapsed on his bed that he’d started to wonder why he felt so ill suddenly.

So here he was home alone and feeling like he was dying. It would be sensible to phone 911 about now but the thought of crossing the room to where his phone was placed on his desk was horrifying. The bite had started to hurt again and he was running a temperature, shivering and boiling in turn. He’d tried to get up earlier to try and turn off the light burning into his eyes but had almost thrown up before he’d even sat up fully.

Peter lay curled on his side for what felt like hours, the pain only becoming worse as weird muscle cramps and spasms were added to his list of symptoms. The situation was fast becoming increasingly dire and he had no hope of anyone coming to his rescue on time: his Uncle was currently halfway across the country helping one of his old friends move house and Aunt May wasn’t going to be back until the next morning as she had the night shift. Peter was terrified she’d be returning home to his corpse. A couple of tears trickled down his face before the pain became unbearable and he lost consciousness just as he felt something in his chest _shift._

* * *

He awoke some unknown amount of time later, which surprised him to be totally honest. It was now light outside and there was a note on the bedside table from May.

_Have gone out for groceries. I’ve already called the school so stay in bed!! :)_

Peter smiled fondly and stretched, enjoying being pain free again. He suddenly became aware that he smelled _awful_ – like a forgotten carton of milk had been spilt in a hospital – and clambered out of bed to take a shower. Peter grabbed his pyjamas, which he hadn’t had time to change into last night and ambled into the bathroom. He swiftly undressed on autopilot, eager to be under the warm water.

The shower was just as good as he’d thought it would be and Peter could feel his muscles all relaxing. He tipped his head back and let the water run down his chest. Everything felt good, until suddenly it didn’t. It was as if the water was going down his throat, into his lungs. He was choking! Except he couldn’t be, his mouth was closed! He started to cough and heave in huge breaths, realising as he did so that these were the first breaths he’d taken since waking up.

He stumbled out of the shower, still panicking but the suffocating feeling fading as soon as he left the spray of water. Peter then saw his reflection and stared. His chest seemed to have gotten bigger, his muscles more defined but that wasn’t what had stolen his attention. Halfway down his ribcage, just under where his sternum ended, there was a small fold of skin that _definitely_ hadn’t been there before! He prodded at it with trembling hands to reveal a small hole that seemed to lead down into his ribcage. He swore quietly before sliding onto the floor and promptly fainting.

* * *

A month on from the spider bite and the changes it had brought, Peter was beginning to accept his new condition. He’d spent the first few days in a state of denial until he managed to kick a soccer ball so hard it had bent the goalpost in gym class (luckily the incident had been dismissed by all concerned as a structural fault in the ancient goalposts). He’d realised then that he was _dangerous_ and ignorance towards his new abilities wasn’t doing him any favours. He’d resolved to educate himself but that was proving difficult – it wasn’t like anyone like him had existed before. Peter suspected that if the wrong people found about him it probably wouldn’t end well so he couldn’t exactly march into the Doctor’s and demand to see the local expect on transgenic humans. Instead Peter had turned to the internet and read as much as he could on spiders. He’d even sent some emails to researchers, asking questions under the guise of being a spider enthusiast. Peter didn’t even like the creatures, although he certainly had more respect for them now!

Alongside his reading he’d also carried out some experiments on himself. They weren’t ideal (no study with a sample size of one and no control was!) but it was the best he could do. He’d started off with the changes he was more comfortable with: his heightened awareness of his surroundings and ability to cling to walls and even ceilings before moving on to his greatly increased coordination and strength as well as decreased thermoregulation.

He left the opening in his chest and new breathing arrangements for last. It still freaked him out that there was a _hole_ in the middle of his ribcage although some of his fears had been eased when he’d read that they could be another set of lungs. He found he could breathe with just one pair of lungs at a time as they worked differently – the top set were connected to his trachea and as far as he could tell were just like smaller versions of his original lungs. The pair below however, were not. He supposed they must be something like book lungs, which his research had shown were common in spiders and didn’t require any motion to work. His body now automatically used the lower pair which meant no breathing – unless he exercised or consciously thought about it. Breathing felt strange now, the movements more jerky and stiffer than he remembered. It still really freaked him out to be honest (although there had been no more fainting since that time in the bathroom).

On the bright side, showers had stopped being a traumatic experience once he’d figured out how to clench the muscles around the opening closed. He’d also taken to wearing vests under his clothes so that no one saw his changed anatomy when changing for gym class. It also helped in keeping warm, which had become more difficult since the bite. He just had to remember to keep on pretending to breathe – even if it made him feel lightheaded sometimes – and no one would ever find out!

Despite being awful at keeping secrets, Peter was still the only one aware of the change and he’d like to keep it that way! To begin with it had seemed like a game or his own special secret but then he’d thought about it and realised the stakes were higher: if he messed up it could cost him everything! His Aunt and Uncle would probably be accepting but he didn’t want to take the risk and if he told one or two people then it would be more likely for others to find out. If he told Ned he would be overjoyed but he was even worse at keeping his mouth shut than Peter. Peter was used to having people around him that he could confide in so this situation made him feel trapped.

Uncle Ben’s voice sent Peter scrabbling to hide his notebook containing his notes on his abilities.  
“Peter, you want to come help me get some ice cream from the store?”

“Sure, just a minute!” Peter felt happier already at the prospect of ice cream. He bounced out of his room, grabbing a pair of socks as he went. He could practically already taste it! Uncle Ben laughed at his eagerness and after receiving Aunt May’s shopping list and throwing on coats and shoes they stepped out into the dark streets.

Little did Peter know that he wouldn’t be getting any ice cream that night. They would buy it – a large tub of sticky toffee flavour – that would later melt on the Police Station floor. Peter’s life was going be changed forever: tonight he would be set on the path to becoming Spiderman.


	2. Tony

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OK well his was a lot longer than planned!! Tony has a lot to say about Peter it seems - I must admit he is pretty sappy here. You've been warned! He basically spends the chapter worrying about Peter and trying not to show it.  
> For a long time I was conflicted about the angst:fluff ratio that should be in this chapter. In the end I think it's come out fairly well balanced (although the penultimate part of this chapter may make people angry... haha) There continues to be a fairly heavy science presence and after a conversation about arthropod anatomy with one of my friends, whose family keeps bees, I have changed the changes Peter undergoes a little.  
> Also I know literally NOTHING about Dr Cho except from that she's in Age of Ultron (which I haven't seen) so if she is out of character that is why!

Tony rubbed at his gritty eyes wearily and sighed. He’d been up a few days in a row by now and he was about ready to crash on his workshop couch, next to Wonder Web himself who had already been out for a good half hour. Peter was staying with him over the weekend while his Aunt was away at her cousin’s funeral.

He was rearranging the blanket around the kid’s shoulders when he realised the body on the couch was too still. He put his hand in front of Peter’s face and felt much more awake when he couldn’t feel any breath. He grabbed the kid’s shoulder and shook him violently.

“Peter, wake up! Come on kid, please! _Peter!!_ ”

Tony was beginning to panic when Peter was blinking woozily up at him “Whatsthematter?” he rubbed at the sleep in his eyes and Tony felt his heart melt a little.

“You weren’t breathing, Pete.” He tried to hide how panicked he’d been and carefully angled his body so Peter couldn’t see his trembling left hand. Peter’s expression smoothed over like a frozen lake – which was odd considering how expressive he normally was – but it only lasted a moment before he went back to the sleepy teenager he’d appeared to be before.

“Oh yea, Aunt May says I do that in my sleep sometimes – it’s not dangerous though – it only lasts a little bit.” The kid patted Tony’s arm clumsily and snuggled back down into the blanket. Tony lifted Peter’s feet out of the way and sprawled down on the sofa, suddenly overwhelmingly tired as the last of the adrenaline left his system. Before he could think to question what had happened he was out.

* * *

It wasn’t until a couple days later that Tony really thought about what had happened. The rest of Peter’s stay had been so busy he’s somehow forgotten and after that Pepper had been on his case about a prototype he’d promised her would be completed a fortnight ago. The only reason he’d remembered at all was because he’d had a dream (nightmare) where Peter had been asleep in a pit full of spiders and wouldn’t wake up, even as they began to eat him alive. Tony rarely dreamed outside of what his PTSD cooked up so to experience a something that wasn’t directly inspired by his superhero work was a somewhat dubious novelty. He’d jolted awake horribly shaken – partially convinced it had actually happened by how _real_ it had felt. He could still see in his mind’s eye how the spider’s fangs had pinched at the kid’s cheeks before painting the pit red with blood. 

It had taken quite some time to calm down – especially when he’d remembered the incident a few nights ago. Peter had claimed he was fine and he didn’t think Peter was lying outright (the kid was an _awful_ liar) he didn’t think he was getting the whole picture either. That was why he was now trawling through the internet in search for answers. He’d started with that weird breathing pause thingy babies did – FRIDAY helpfully informed him the proper term was ‘Periodic breathing’ – which Peter seemed to be a little old for (he may be a kid but he was definitely older than 6 months!). However this had led him to ‘central sleep apnea’ which seemed to fit what Peter had exactly: periods of no breathing while asleep for up to 2 minutes and no breathing attempts during this time and upon waking up being unable to breathe iniatially before breathing heavily to compensate. He got FRIDAY to play the security footage from the incident to see how well it matched. It was hard to make out details because of the low lighting but it seemed to fit the symptoms perfectly. Central sleep apnea was caused by issues in the area of the brain that controlled respiration and seemed like the most benign of the possiblitites (and even then it could be dangerous in severe cases). 

There were a number of other, more ominous conditions with similar symptoms, including a number of heart conditions and even opioid use! While any of these were alarming the very worst of the possibilities was in a completely different league – a disorder known as Ondine’s curse. It was usually genetic but could also be caused by severe brain/spine injuries. If left untreated it was almost always fatal and the treatment itself involved tracheotomies and sleeping on a respirator. He couldn’t find much on the exact life expectancy but it was obviously pretty grim, especially when he considered how much Peter got knocked around as Spiderman. The only thing in Peter’s favour was that if he had Ondine’s curse he probably would already be dead! 

Tony caught himself gazing longingly at the cabinet he kept his whiskey in. It was only 11 am but hearing your intern was possibly doing drugs/very ill tended to make even the best of people want to bury their heads in the sand for a while. He’d walked halfway to the cabinet when it hit him that the Parkers probably didn’t have the medical insurance to deal with this. He turned back to his seat, alcohol forgotten for now. He would deal with his feelings in a more productive way: throwing money at the charitable organisations in the hopes they would improve what he couldn’t. 

* * *

“I- um… Kiddo could we have a chat? Maybe?” Tony cringed internally as he plonked himself down on one of the penthouse sofas and patted the cushion next to him for Peter to sit also. The kid shot an uncertain look at him and also sat but remained tensed nervously. 

Tony sighed. Great! He’d gotten the kid on edge before he’d even started!! “So! Uh…” he faltered before steeling himself and going straight to the heart of the issue. 

“What’s the deal with the not breathing properly in your sleep Peter? I did some research in the past few days and there’s several things that can cause that but _none_ of them are ‘not dangerous’” 

Peter didn’t say anything and looked mulish. Tony sighed again. 

“Look I get it that you don’t want my help in this but do you really want to end up dying?! I don’t understand! Is it a money issue? Does your medical insurance not cover it?? Please tell me you haven’t been taking opioids illegally – although to be honest I’m not sure if I prefer the prospect of you doing drugs or having some sort of dangerous long-tern health condition. I mean both can mess up your life…” He realised he was ranting and tapered off. The kid looked a little bemused and then _smiled_ (the expression was a little nervous but it was still a genuine smile). 

“Mr Stark, I really don’t have any problems like that.” Tony immediately frowned angrily but Peter raised a hand to silence him “It’s to do with my abilities.” 

“What?!” he stared at Peter, for once in his life not knowing what to say first “Why didn’t you tell me? Waaaait, how does that work in the first place!? Spill the beans, Kid.” 

Peter looked nervous again “I mean I don’t know for sure but I probably have two pairs of lungs, like a spider and they work differently so sometimes it doesn’t look like I’m breathing but I am? There’s like a separate airway and everything!!” Tony couldn’t believe what he was hearing and realised when Peter stopped talking that he was openly staring. This really had not been what he had been expecting from this intervention! (admittedly, despite the weird turn things had taken, this was a far better outcome than he’d been envisaging) 

Peter looked dejected now “Yea I know, it’s really messed up, right? I-I’ll just go then.” He went to get up but Tony clumsily grabbed his elbow. If Peter really wanted to leave he could throw off Tony’s arm easily – in fact he’d probably allowed Tony to grab him in the first place – but he didn’t move. 

“No, stay Peter! It’s not messed up, I’m just surprised!! This isn’t the conversation I was expecting to be having and to be honest I’m glad – although you are definitely seeing a professional about this! Friday, make an appointment with Dr Cho.” Wow, Tony was going soft. There were several other specialists in enhanced humans that he could take Peter to see and many of them were far closer to New York as well! However Dr Cho was easily the nicest and he could trust her to keep her mouth shut. Besides Peter needed to experience more of the world! 

“Of course Boss” Friday sounded smug. Tony would have to have words with her later. 

Peter looked like he wanted to protest but Tony turned a wolfish smile on him “Also, I’m going to be having a discussion about health insurance with May. This time might have been false alarm but next time it might not be.” 

Peter groaned in frustration “You do know she really won’t like this?” 

Tony grinned wider, he would not be moved on this – even by May. 

* * *

“Nice to meet you, Peter” Dr Cho greeted as Peter and Tony entered her clinic. She was reading a large textbook titled ‘Invertebrate Physiology 12th edition’ and scribbling notes on a notepad. The kid seemed to still be in an awed daze at Tony flying him to South Korea just for a Doctor’s appointment so he waved at her but didn’t say anything. He was also _very_ nervous judging by how jittery he’d been on the flight over. Right now he was fiddling with the strap of his backpack hard enough for the fabric to creak alarmingly so Tony patted him on the shoulder reassuringly. 

“Tony said you had some notes on your abilities, could I see them?” She’d got up and approached them. Despite her friendly manner, Peter angled himself behind Tony a little before shrugging off his bag and digging out a couple battered notebooks. He grudgingly handed them over and Dr Cho immediately started to skim through. 

“Hm, this seems pretty well thought out. How about you give Peter a tour, Tony? You’ve been here enough to know your way around. I need a while to read this and then when you come back we can get started properly!” 

“Sure, it would be my pleasure!” Tony smiled back before steering Peter away from Dr Cho’s desk. 

“Don’t mess with anything!!” she called after them. 

The two of them spent the next hour wandering around and getting excited at the staggeringly expensive equipment. Tony may have messed with some things he shouldn’t have (he couldn’t resist!) but he’d put everything back – and in some cases had even improved things!! Peter had slowly relaxed in the proximity of so many things he wanted to know about and gush over but all too soon Dr Cho was calling them back and Peter was tensing up again, though not as badly as before. 

Tony found a table to perch on while the initial examinations took place. To be honest he wasn’t really paying much attention except to occasionally glance across to check things were still going OK. This time when he looked round Dr Cho was asking Peter to take off his t-shirt (which had one of those awful science puns plastered across it that he was _not_ going to laugh at!). Peter looked very self-conscious and Tony was very close to just stopping the appointment there, surely Helen already had enough information to go off? However, in the long term this could be important. He tried not to stare at the strange fold of skin that Dr Cho said protected the opening for the kid’s _second airway_. Tony schooled his expression to bored indifference while he internally cringed at what it could have felt like for that to form. The opening was only a little lower than where the arc reactor had sat so this was hitting a little close to home. 

Dr Cho now had a stethoscope and was listening to Peter’s breathing (or lack thereof). She was soon frowning and when she asked Peter to take in a few deeper breaths she just looked confused. She then went and dug out a hefty medical textbook and started quickly flipping through, obviously looking for something in particular. When she paused and read whatever section she’d been looking for she only looked more confused. Dr Cho handed Peter his t-shirt before going back to her desk. 

“Why don’t you two go get some lunch? I need to check some things, although I suspect the existing literature isn’t going to be much help” she sighed heavily “Would you be alright with having an MRI, Peter? At this point I doubt anything else is going to help much.” 

“Uh, sure?” Peter squeaked out, looking to Tony for guidance. Tony suddenly felt terrified at the level the kid trusted him but made sure to smile reassuringly. 

“I know just the place to take you!” he wrapped an arm round the kid’s shoulders and steered him out the door “I bet you’ll love Korean food.” 

* * *

After the day of the MRI, it took Dr Cho a couple of weeks to interpret the data. Tony contacted her a couple times to ask about her progress but each time she had seemed utterly flummoxed. However eventually he got the call on a dreary Monday afternoon that she had come to some conclusions. Luckily Peter was supposed to be coming round after school anyway so he didn’t have too wait long. 

“Hey Mr Stark!” 

Peter bounced in around usual time, looking chipper and cheery even after a full day of school.

“Hey, Kid. How was your day?” He tried to hide his smile as Peter set off on a rant about how unreasonable Spanish Grammar was and how ridiculous his classmates were. 

When he’d finished Tony told him “I heard from Dr Cho today that she has your results, do you want to call her?” Peter’s smile instantly disappeared and Tony felt like a lump of garbage for bringing it up. 

“I mean you don’t have to if you don’t want to…?” he offered

The kid looked like he was going to agree for a second before he set his jaw in determination “No, let’s do this!” 

“OK. Friday, call Dr Cho please” he patted Peter on the shoulder reassuringly and guided him over to sit on the couch. 

“Right away,” a holographic screen popped up in front of them with a loading symbol slowly rotating. The call then connected and Dr Cho’s face appeared on the screen. 

“Hi, Peter. I have your results now, I’m sorry it took so long but some of your more unusual features had me stumped” A bundle of papers was visible at the bottom of the screen which she studied at for a minute before speaking “From what I can tell there is nothing that is going to cause any severe health conditions in the near future however there are things you are going to have to bear in mind” Tony and Peter both breathed out a sigh of relief. 

Helen smiled at them before resuming “For instance, your ability to thermoregulate is severely diminished so if you are exposed to extreme temperatures – especially cold – for a long period of time it could have severe consequences. Another potential problem is your extremely high metabolic rate, although without tissue samples I cannot tell you exactly how elevated it is. Normally I would say that in a patient that shows such a low level of ventilation that pneumonia is a certainty but seeing as you said you haven’t been sick at all since you were bitten I reckon we don’t need to worry about that. It may be that you have acquired some arachnid immune system characteristics although that would also require more tests to confirm.” 

She paused to take a breath “Now moving on to the situation with your lungs. The main reason I took so long to get back was because I had some difficulty interpreting the MRI results. It appears Peter was correct in his hypothesis of two separate sets of lungs but not so much for the exact arrangement. Here is an image of an unenhanced 16 year old” she held up a grayscale MRI image of someone’s torso so they could see it. Tony could recognise some features such as the vertebrae forming a dashed line down the centre and the dark gaps around where the lungs would be. The rest was grey abstract swirls of internal organs and he didn’t remember enough anatomy to place them. “And here is the results from Peter’s scan” Tony may not know much about the inner workings of the human body (in fact it was a topic he was quite happy to remain ignorant of after the forays that had been necessary to keep himself alive) but it was painfully obvious that Peter was arranged a little _differently_. There was a string of black blobs extending all around the inside of his ribcage (or at least where he thought the ribcage should go) and a large pair of fairly dark sections in the middle. The rest of the internal organs looked a bit different too but it was more subtle, a loop in one where there was a larger swirl in the other and so on. 

Peter was looking a little green around the gills so Tony patted him on the shoulder reassuringly. “So what does it mean?” Peter asked. 

“You were correct that you have two pairs of lungs but in resting conditions _neither_ type requires any ventilation to function – you only need to respire during exercise because you are a lot bigger than the average spider so your oxygen demand is greater. Your hypothesis about the book lungs was also correct and you can see them here connecting to the opening in your chest” she pointed to the large blobs on the scan that were roughly where lungs would be expected. “However the tracheal lungs were more arthropod-like than I expected. You see these tubes inside the ribcage” She showed them the strings of round shapes Tony had noticed earlier “These are the tracheae, in arthropods they have a structural role as well as being for respiration so you can see that they’re located just behind the ribs to reinforce them. You told me that breathing felt more stiff than before and this is probably why.” Dr Cho then showed them a part of the scan that showed what looked like a dent in one of the tube-lung things “Would I be right in saying that you have broken a rib since your transformation, Peter?” 

“Um, yea… I did a while back.” Peter grinned sheepishly. 

“Wait, what? Tony whirled round to face the kid to demand an explanation “When was this!?”

Peter managed to look even more sheepish “In a fight with the Vulture” 

Well that made sense he supposed, Peter had been pretty beaten up afterwards and things had been a little tense after the whole Staten Island Ferry disaster but surely he would have told Tony if he had something as potentially dangerous as a broken rib? “Why didn’t you tell me?” he tried to keep the hurt out of his voice but he wasn’t sure he’d been totally successful when Peter’s expression slid from embarrassment to dejection. 

“I didn’t want to be a bother, and it wasn’t that bad anyway…” Peter looked like he wanted the sofa to eat him but Tony wasn’t going to let this go. He’d had enough of the kid’s self-destructive behaviour! 

“Peter, that injury has permanently reshaped part of your respiratory system and you want me to think it wasn’t bad?? Dr Cho please correct me if I’m wrong but if the tube-lung things-” 

“tracheae” 

“Thank you, anyway if these tracheae didn’t weren’t reinforced that broken rib could have punctured your lung and you could have died!” 

“I…” Peter seemed to be lost for words for once. 

“He is correct Peter, in fact I would say that even if they are stronger than a normal person’s lung you are still very able to die from pneumothorax so don’t start thinking you’re invincible.” 

“Yes, Dr Cho” 

“Also something to warn you about – when arthropods moult they also shed the linings of their tracheae. I’m unsure if this is going to happen in your case: you’re still growing but you have no exoskeleton. However, if anything unusual happens you may want to seek help – get Tony to give you my number when we’re done.” Peter frowned puzzledly as that information sank in, before looking a little horrified. 

“Don’t worry, Peter. I’m pretty sure that it won’t happen, I just want you to be prepared for any worst case scenarios” Peter nodded, he still looked a little spooked but not as badly as before. Tony wished then that Peter didn’t have 

The two adults gave him a moment to process all the new information before Dr Cho resumed her explanation “Now, moving on to…”

* * *

“You need to stop, Stark.” Tony looked up at Nebula from the control panel he was attempting to fix. On any other day he would relish the chance to repair an alien spaceship (or attempt to if he was being honest) but after the day he’d had the experience left him unmoved. Nebula looked angry – well angrier than usual that is – and had her arms crossed in from of her. He set down the tool he’d been using and crossed his arms too, leaning against the ship wall for support. 

“The sooner I get this repaired, the sooner we can leave. That’s what you want, right?” he knew consciously provoking angry blue assassin aliens with short tempers was probably not the best idea he’d ever had but he was tired and in a lot of pain so making polite conversation wasn’t exactly one of his priorities. (Let’s be honest though, when had being polite ever been a priority for him?) 

“We’ll _never_ leave if you die before you can finish repairs. You may have filled the wound with nanites but that’s just a temporary solution.” 

Tony knew he needed to stop. He could feel the nanites shifting inside his wound every time he bent down and blood had started leaking from the wound again. He knew that if he wasn’t already bleeding internally he probably soon would be; the nanites were not designed to do this and he was quite low on power after fighting Thanos. 

He shifted to try and find a more comfortable way to stand that didn’t put so much pressure on his injuries and caught a glimpse of the dust still smeared on his hands. The dust that had been Peter only a couple of hours ago. He had tried so _hard_ to protect the kid – the iron spider suit had been the work of many months and he’d included everything Peter could possibly need: extra web fluid storage, mechanical spider legs, reinforced chest section (no more ribs were going to be broken on his watch!) and the air permeability of the suit could be changed so that Peter could easily get enough oxygen. He may have gone overboard when he made the suit able to withstand the upper atmosphere but with how things had gone it was just as well. 

However, none of his preparations could have prepared him against Thanos. He’d put everything into preparing for this fight, it had been all he’d lived for when his life had seemed unliveable. After Ultron, after Siberia this had been all that had kept him going. 

And yet he still failed. 

He inhaled shakily and turned back to his work. “Thank you for the offer, but I think I’ll be fine.”

There was silence and Tony thought Nebula had left, when arms suddenly wrapped around him from behind and he was hoisted into a fireman’s carry. He panicked for a minute and kicked out before realising that being dropped right now would not be enjoyable. Luckily Nebula managed to keep her grip but he still wasn’t impressed. 

“Put me _down!_ Nebula!!” She ignored him and kept on walking until they reached the ship’s first aid cupboard in one of the guardian’s bedrooms. She set him down on a bed uncharacteristically gently but when Tony tried to squirm away he found himself in a painful arm-lock. 

“I’m trying to help, Stark. You aren’t the only one that lost someone today so get it together! Your son is gone and there’s nothing you can do about that, but you can change things for those of us still here!!” she released him and began to rummage through the medical supplies. He didn’t recognise many of the items appearing but Nebula looked like she knew what she was doing. He’d leave explaining that Peter wasn’t his son for later. 

“I understand” 

“You’d better” 

* * *

In the end, Nebula’s words turned out to be incorrect. 

He _was_ able to help Peter, and while it had cost him enormously he would do it again with no hesitation if he had to do his life over. 

(Maybe she hadn’t been wrong about everything though) 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter (which probably won't be written for a LLLLLONG time) will be from May's perspective. I don't have a very good understanding of her character (she seems nice though?) but I feel like she has to have her own chapter because all too often people write her out of fics and she deserves better!  
> Also, some shameless self-promotion: my other fic (Brick by brick) is updated kind of regularly as much of it is already written and while it is Tony-centric, Peter is going to become one of the main characters (and he's going to have a VERY BAD TIME).


	3. May

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well it's been a hot second or two, hasn't it!?  
> The seven months or so since I last posted have been rather eventful but mainly in positive ways but everyone's comments really motivated me to write the next chapter even though I had some major difficulties.  
> While I am pretty mean to the characters in my fics I don't really go into the realm of sicfics so this was a voyage into the unknown. There were a few times where I had to delete whole sections because there are some limits to what I will do to Peter (believe it or not!!) - more on that in the end notes!
> 
> Warnings: some very weird body horror, vomiting (kind of but not really??) and descriptions of illness. Also mentions of the ending of endgame

“What’s this, Peter?” May eyes the heavy brown envelope that has been dumped in her lap dubiously. 

Peter answers with his customary stuttering pantomime that shows he is uncertain and maybe has something to hide. Something about a doctor’s appointment – which May would have expected to know about sooner – and repeated assurances that she shouldn’t panic. None of which was particularly reassuring but Peter appeared to be more preoccupied with her reaction than whatever was actually in the envelope. May sees that Peter is about to launch himself onto the sofa and hurriedly places her mug down before the hot tea can be spilled. Once Peter has settled next to her, looking much like some kind of blanket monster (he was obviously feeling cold today) she opened the envelope and pulled out the papers within. 

The thick stack of paper was the results from a check-up Peter had had to determine any possible effects the spider bite could have had on his health. She took a cursory look through and realised the document was _detailed_ before turning her attention back to her nephew. 

“Did Mr Stark persuade you to do this?” she carefully kept any judgement from her voice. While she thought this was a good idea she was still a little wary of Mr Stark after the fiasco with the vulture and the resulting injuries Peter had received. Peter thought the world of the man and Stark seemed to be fond of Peter in return but May just wanted to avoid a repeat of that morning when instead of enjoying homecoming like the rest of his peers, Peter had returned bleeding and shaking and on the verge of breaking down. May hadn’t managed to get much insight to what exactly had happened that night, even after she had discovered his secret identity, but it had clearly been traumatic. 

“Yea… I managed to give him a bit of a fright a few weeks ago so he was pretty adamant I go. Don’t worry though, Dr Cho works with lots of enhanced people so she knows to keep things quiet.” 

“How did you give him a fright?” she frowned when Peter immediately looked guilty. 

“Uuuuh. Well… So since the spider bite some of my insides were a bit… rearranged?” Peter cringed at the face May was making. She had no idea what expression she was making, how on earth was she supposed to take this?? 

“Rearranged. Of course.” She muttered, feeling a little faint. 

When Peter didn’t elaborate she demanded “Please continue.” 

So he explained the changes his body had undergone in that overly technical, jargon-loaded way that he usually used to talk about what he had gotten up to with Mr Stark or when he wanted to tell her about something interesting he had read. It was odd to hear him talk about himself using that language. 

It was odder still that he apparently now didn’t need to actively breathe the same way everyone else did. As she processed this bombshell she surreptitiously observed Peter. For the last five minutes he had only taken a breath when he was talking, when silent his chest remained completely motionless. Once May had noticed it was impossible to un-notice and May wondered how she had ever missed it in the first place. Although Peter talked so much that maybe it wasn’t so surprising. 

Once May was reassured that Peter wasn’t in any immediate danger from his modifications (and she had drunk the rest of her tea) she felt a lot more calm. She would still read every word of the report but it was comforting to know that she wasn’t the only person supporting Peter anymore. 

* * *

May is attempting to bake scones (yet again) when Peter arrives back from school. The door bangs open a little harder than normal but she is busy retrieving the tray from the oven. She hoped Peter wasn’t too hungry – the last couple years his appetite had been difficult to keep up with but lately it had been especially voracious. Sometimes it was more like having a vaguely human-shaped swarm of locusts in the house instead of a hungry teenager. 

Unusually, Peter doesn’t immediately enter the kitchen so May shucks off the oven gloves and apron to check on him. The front door isn’t closed properly and there is a trail of Peter’s schoolbag, shoes and coat that leads towards the closed bathroom door. Peter isn’t someone to keep places tidy by any means but this is unusually bad. However, before she can become irritated she hears the sound of her nephew throwing up. 

The bathroom door is unlocked and she slips inside to see what is wrong. Peter looks up at her from his position slumped by the toilet, for a second his expression only shows exhaustion before it changes to guilty panic – the kind Peter makes when he realises he’s about to be found out (an expression May is becoming worryingly familiar with!). She takes a closer look at her nephew (both to let him stew a little longer and to see if she can determine what is wrong with him). Peter is in a word _grey_. Sweat shines on his face and his hands clench the toilet tightly – as if he would fall if he released it. This would all lead May to the conclusion that Peter was simply sick (even though he hadn’t been sick at all since the spider stuff kicked off) but, horrifyingly, there were patches of his skin which appeared to be peeling off. Large flakes, almost like confetti in appearance, litter the floor and on Peter the places where the new skin underneath is exposed looks pink and raw. 

Peter makes another awful choking noise and hurriedly turns back around to spit out a clump of something. May stepped closer to rub her nephew’s back soothingly and catches a glimpse of what is floating in the toilet bowl. Peter appears to be _literally_ coughing his lungs out. May has to hold herself back from full out panicking but she still shrieks. Peter hunches further over the toilet, hands gripping his ears, and his misery forces May to focus. For someone that is leaving chunks of his internal organs lying around Peter seems to be fairly energetic so he’s not at death’s door yet. 

“Peter, can you tell me what is happening to you right now?” she asks softly. “Do I need to phone Tony?” 

Peter regards her for a long moment and for a minute she thinks he doesn’t understand but then his eyes show understanding and he nods. 

“I think I’m moulting” he manages to say breathlessly before he has to turn back to the toilet. May is infinitely grateful then that she found out about Peter’s secret before this happened. When Peter had first come clean she had read up about spiders in an effort to be prepared for any future weirdness. She was aware that she was by no means stupid but she was certainly not on the level of Peter when it came to more scholarly areas so she had been somewhat limited in her research. Regardless, it had been useful when she had received that medical report a couple months ago. She had read it start to finish but there had been no mention of anything even remotely like this happening! 

May pulls out her phone and calls Tony Stark’s personal number. Not something she had ever expected to have but at this point her life had pretty much diverged from what most people considered ‘normal’. 

The dial tone rings seven times before Tony answers sleepily. “Hey, May! What’s up? Peter’s not gotten himself mixed up in anything unpleasant again I hope?” 

That reminded her of the last time she’d phoned Tony. Peter had showed up after patrolling having been stabbed in the leg and had attempted to pretend he was uninjured. The whole business had come to a head in the early hours of the morning when Peter had seen sense and realised he couldn’t deal with his injuries alone. May still hadn’t gotten the bloodstains out of the living room rug. 

Oh well, no point sparing the man’s feelings. “Peter is currently expelling pieces of his lungs into the toilet. He claims he is _moulting_.”

There is a sound of a startled inhale and then of something being dropped but it seems for once the great Tony Stark was speechless. 

“Okay…” Tony sounded slightly panicked “is he having any difficulties getting enough air? I can get to you within a few minutes with oxygen if he needs it but I’d prefer to call Dr Cho first and get her opinion.” 

May eyed Peter critically. She watched his chest expand and contract rapidly as if Peter had just been running. It was very rare to see Peter out of breath at all so this was very worrying. “He does seem to be breathing very fast.” She reported. 

“I’ll be there soon” there was a clanking noise and then he hung up. 

The next six minutes were spent trying to reassure Peter as he began to panic. His breathing was becoming more ragged and he was wheezing slightly as his lung capacity decreased. The time between each section of lung being coughed up appeared to be increasing and she almost dared to believe the worst was over. May held him close on the bathroom floor and wished Tony would hurry up. 

When the doorbell rang May carefully propped Peter against the radiator and sprinted down the hall to the door. She flung it open to reveal a very harassed-looking Tony Stark carrying a couple of oxygen tanks in one hand and a bag of other equipment in the other. He burst into the apartment and headed straight to the bathroom where he carefully dumped the things he’d brought on the floor and retrieved his phone from a pocket of his jacket. There was an already ongoing call with who May presumed was Dr Cho and soon enough Tony was pressing an oxygen mask to Peter’s second airway, taping it in place to compensate for the poor fit, while relaying details of Peter’s condition over the phone. 

Peter quickly became more alert and calmed once he began to receive sufficient oxygen once again. However, the greyness of his skin doesn’t change and he is obviously still in some significant discomfort. Tony had brought some kind of prototype medical scanner that he just had to point at Peter for about thirty seconds and then he sent the data to Dr Cho. 

While they wait for Dr Cho to look through the scans they manoeuvre Peter out of the bathroom and over to the living room sofa. Peter’s strength seemed to have deserted him so it takes both of them to carry him. Once he is situated (with a bucket strategically positioned nearby just in case). May grabs a pile of blankets from the cupboard and proceeded to wrap Peter up until only his head remains peeking out. The last thing he needed now was to get cold and it was currently December, plus it gave her something to do that made her feel somewhat useful. 

She watches the way the mask fogs up with every slow breath Peter takes and smooths the hair back from his face. He needs a haircut again. Peter doesn’t acknowledge her presence at all – he is either not conscious or he is feeling the kind of unwell where nothing can be done but lie as still as possible and hope for the best. 

May is then distracted from her thoughts by Tony returning and taking a seat in the armchair. 

“Helen agrees with Peter that he is moulting – not that it’s a difficult conclusion to come to seeing as the kid is currently doing his best impression of a dermatologist’s worst nightmare! She said that judging by the scans that Peter has now expelled one set of lungs completely and that he’s now growing the replacements so the other set can go. She thinks the whole moulting process should take a couple days and then he’ll be fine to return to school” 

May sighed and rubbed her face. Tony was surprisingly calm about this and given all the times they had had crises together over whatever stupid stunt Peter had attempted he was maybe _too calm_.

“You already knew that this was a possibility, didn’t you Tony?” she asked accusingly. 

Tony blanched and looked away from her “Uh... No of course not! I’m just as confused as you?” 

“Really?” she gave him an unamused stare and waited for him to crack. 

He kept his gaze fixed on the floor and managed to look even more sheepish “Well Dr Cho mentioned it as a possibility but she was certain it wasn’t going to happen! I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want you to worry about something that we thought wasn’t going to happen.” 

“Well, I would appreciate it if in the future you kept me fully up to date with anything concerning Peter. This was not a pleasant surprise and it would have been nice to be fully informed in the first place.” She internally winced at how snippy she sounded and fully expected Tony to react with his usual sharp comments he employed when he was on the defensive. To her surprise he instead seemed to fold inwards at her words. 

“I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.” he muttered and escaped to check on the equipment he’d left in the bathroom. May suspected that would be all the apology she would get. Some people might have been offended by this but he had sounded sincere it was more than she was expecting. 

* * *

May closed the door as Tony sauntered out of her the apartment with a cheery wave. The last two days had been tense and May hadn’t managed to get any time off work so much of Peter’s care had been left to Tony. She had to admit she was impressed by his dedication, from what everyone said about Tony Stark (including the man himself) she would have thought he would have been near to useless at dealing with a sick teenager! 

After the initial scare Peter had remained unconscious and on oxygen as his tracheal lungs regrew. The process had lasted through the remainder of the night and all the next day while she was at work. Tony said he had briefly awoken a couple of times, ravenously hungry but not particularly coherent. 

When she had returned Peter had seemingly recovered fully and was sitting at the table and shovelling down a bowl of pasta with enthusiasm. He was not long out of the shower and his skin was a fresh bright pink all over – the old layers had been shed completely. The relief of seeing Peter so much better had almost felt like a physical blow and she had teetered over to a chair in a happy daze. They had all sat down and eaten dinner together and for a brief time they had been able to forget the impending ordeal hanging over them. 

Of course it hadn’t lasted and not even an hour later Peter had been suffering again. May hadn’t noticed exactly when the moulting had started again because she had been teasing Tony but the clang of Peter dropping his spoon in his half-eaten bowl of ice cream had drawn their attention. 

Peter had lurched to his feet and made for the sofa on unsteady legs. Tony caught him before he could fall and May rushed to help them. 

The second half of Peter’s moult had been just as bad as the first despite being anticipated this time. The lining of his book lungs was more firmly anchored and after several hours of Peter wheezing and clutching his chest there had been very little progress. Tony had phoned Dr Cho again but all she could tell them was that they needed to wait. There had been other options of course but they were likely to cause Peter further distress and they had both refused to go there unless it was absolutely necessary. 

They both stayed up with Peter for hours trying to ease the passage of the ordeal for him, despite May having work the next day and Tony being extremely sleep deprived (who knew when he had last slept!). Eventually, at about 2 AM and after hours of waiting, Peter was unconscious once again and May had a another bucket of enhanced human lung tissue to dispose of somehow. Great. She wondered (yet again) exactly what was her life becoming. 

The next day had proceeded much the same as the previous except that May had been painfully sleep deprived but it had all been worth it when she returned home to see Peter was fully back to 

his usual self once again. Tony had stayed for dinner but then left to catch up on everything he had missed at the compound. 

“Bye, Mr Stark!” Peter yelled as She closed the door. Peter was bouncing on the balls of his feet, virtually bouncing off the ceiling with the energy and enthusiasm of someone that has just realised they are no longer ill. They move back to the living room where May tiredly lowers herself down on the sofa while Peter dashes about. 

“I feel GREAT now!” he announces cheerily “Can I go out on patrol tonight?” 

“No. No one is going to be getting up to any shenanigans until you have caught up with all the work you’ve missed.” she fixes him with her best resistance is futile stare. Peter looks a little crestfallen but he nods and accepts her decision. 

She then offers the TV remote to Peter and they settle down to watch Star Trek together. 

* * *

When May returns from what will come to be called ‘the blip’ she is standing on the pavement outside her apartment. As far as she’s concerned she was returning home from work and suddenly the sky brightened and she feels a little disorientated. 

It appears to be a little after midday now, when a second ago it was beginning to get dark. The street looks different too: more unkempt and there are long-neglected piles of wreckage here and there. There isn’t a soul in sight, despite this street normally being busy all day and night. She pulls out her phone and it says 13:49 Which is odd but _fine_. 

She then reads the date and her legs almost collapse beneath her: 3rd October 2023. Last she had checked it had been the 18th April 2018. Either her phone has gone loopy or she has somehow missed a whole five years! She rushes up the steps to her front door and unlocks it frantically. The door is stiffer than it had been that morning and she has to use her whole body weight to push it open. All her and Peter’s stuff is undisturbed but gently cloaked in a thick layer of dust. The breakfast things she left in a rush to dry in the drainer are untouched. The fruit she had bought only yesterday has become a couple of sickly saplings. May collapses into the comforting bulk of the sofa only to have a coughing fit when her actions launch a cloud of dust into the air. She finds the TV remote with shaky hands and turns on the TV. Or at least attempts to: there is no electricity. 

She then fishes her phone back out of her pocket and stares at it numbly for a while as all the facts line up in her head. Something has clearly happened. Exactly what is up for debate but she knows that the world has become something new and unknown. She is on the verge of panicking when she realises she should try to find the news on her phone. 

May unlocks it and then realises she has a multitude of missed calls and unread texts. The calls are all from the school, her remaining extended family, her boss and Tony Stark. She reads all of the texts with growing horror. The timestamps are mainly from 2018 and 2019 and record the decline of their hopes that she is alive. 

There is nothing from Peter. 

Her fingers slip across the screen as she quickly calls him. The line rings and rings but every time it goes straight to the answerphone. 

She tries to stay calm and goes back to Tony’s texts. He was the only one who continued to message her the whole time she had missed. The first was dated almost a month after whatever had happened to cause her to miss five years and the latest had been six months ago: 

> 11/04/23 Hey! It’s been a while. I found a bunch of photos from before the snap today. Pepper made me frame some of the nicest ones. Morgan wanted to know who Peter was so that was a FUN conversation :/ 

> 11/04/23 I miss you May

There was a photo of a framed photograph of Tony and Peter holding an upside down certificate and grinning excitedly. 

The first few texts were full of spelling mistakes and pleas that she tell him if she was alive. 

After a couple weeks the messages had stopped for several months before she had received an essay where Tony poured his heart out. He wrote about how he knew she was dead now and how sorry he was that he wouldn’t get to apologise to her for what he had done. He told her about the being Thanos and his fight against him and how brave Peter had been throughout the whole thing before apologising again. It was unclear why exactly he was sending her texts full of apologies or what exactly had happened to this ‘Thanos’ person but it was clear that Tony had been burdened by guilt for whatever had happened. May wasn’t sure what to make of Tony thinking she was dead – she felt alive and well right now but what had happened while she was gone? Had she been asleep, in a coma or something or sleepwalking? Or maybe she had stopped existing entirely? 

There were several more messages in this vein before Tony finally confessed what he felt guilty about. Tony’s regrets must have been plaguing him especially badly on new year’s eve: 

> 01/01/19 Its been over half a year since you died, May. I realised I haven’t yet told you what I’ve been apologising for which is pretty pathetic all round I must say. Here I am texting a dead woman, trying to say sorry properly for months but not saying what for. I guess no one ever said I was any good at apologies. Anyway here goes: I’m sorry that I couldn’t save Peter. He shouldn’t have been on Titan with me that day, I should have sent him back to his school trip when Thanos’ children showed up in New York and I shouldn’t have let the wizard guy give Thanos the stone. I was useless up there. Nothing we did even touched him! I’m a pathetic excuse for an Avenger…

The stream of regret and self-loathing continued further but May couldn’t read any more. Peter was dead?? She could feel her face grow wet but May forced herself to continue reading the messages to see if there was anything to the contrary of what Tony had implied. She read text after text all expressing Tony’s guilt and tried to ignore the way her heart felt like it was turning itself inside out. 

She finally received absolute confirmation several months of texts later: 

> 22/07/19 I’m going to be a father, May! I’m happy but I know I don’t deserve it after letting Peter die. I’m terrified that I won’t be able to protect my kid too. What am I going to do??? 

May cried harder and her vision was too blurry to continue reading so she put her phone down. Peter was dead. What was she supposed to do now? She was all alone and in a world she barely recognised. The enormity of the changes that had occurred today finally overwhelmed her and she curled up on the sofa and screwed her eyes shut. Sleep eventually softly wrapped its arms around her. 

She woke to the sound of her phone ringing feeling dehydrated and headachy from crying. The sky outside was beginning to darken, casting long shadows inside the apartment. 

It wasn’t anyone in her contacts but she picked up anyway “Yes?” 

“May? Is that you?” Peter’s voice was clear on the other end. He sounded like he’d been crying too but May was too relieved to really process that. 

“You’re alive” she breathed. She felt like she was going to cry all over again but this time from relief. 

“Yea” 

“What happened?” 

And Peter told her. May remained on the verge of tears throughout, feeling wrung out from all the strong emotions. Peter had been dead, just as she had been but now they were safe and that was all that mattered right now. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So yea. Fun fact: in the part where Peter is in the second half of moulting I was going to make it that the lining of his lungs got stuck and they'd have to use some kind of solution to break down the blockage but then I realised that I was about to make Tony waterboard him for medical reasons???? Which I felt was definitely a few steps too far so it is gone!  
> Tony was in this chapter way more than he was meant to be but I guess that is my feelings about endgame coming through (I still cry over the scene where he dies and it has been MONTHS). I'm not certain I really portrayed him very well in the texts but by that point my patience was running out so here it is :S 
> 
> Next chapter: Ned and MJ (probably? but who knows when I'll post that!)

**Author's Note:**

> I know very little about Ben Parker as I only have the MCU adaptation of spiderman to go off - except that he's the catalyst for Peter becoming Spiderman. So that's what you got!
> 
> The next chapter will have Tony (aka the Irondad) having some parenting crises.


End file.
